Arafat and Armageddon

The Palestinian leader is coming under increasing pressure since a massive car bomb destroyed an Israeli bus. Yet with or without Yasser Arafat, reforming his Palestinian Authority will be extremely difficult

THE heat engulfing Yasser Arafat is increasing since a suicide bomber in a car blew up an Israeli bus at Megiddo (the biblical Armageddon) on June 5th, killing 17 of the passengers, 13 of them soldiers. Although this latest act of terrorism was claimed by Islamic Jihad, and condemned by Mr Arafat who says his Palestinian Authority (PA) will arrest the people behind the bombing, it will still strengthen those inside the Israeli government who hold that Israel's military retaliation should include getting rid of Mr Arafat, once and for all. As a warning shot, the Israeli army launched a raid on Mr Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah, destroying property and killing two Palestinians. On Wednesday and again on Friday, the Israeli army also re-entered Jenin in the West Bank, from where the suicide-bomber is believed to have come.

The bombing will also strengthen Ariel Sharon's arguments when he meets George Bush in Washington next week. Under prodding from the Egyptians—President Hosni Mubarak is seeing Mr Bush this weekend—the Americans are contemplating calling for a regional peace conference this summer to lay down a timetable for an early declaration of Palestinian statehood, followed by “final” negotiations on what that state should be. Mr Sharon has always believed and argued that the political process must wait until the PA is reformed, and Palestinian violence is under control.

For the past week the Palestinian leader has been listing in the squall of the contradictory demands Israel, the United States and his people are making on him. On June 1st he heard Mr Sharon tell American envoy William Burns the only Palestinian “reform” Israel wanted is one where “Arafat is cut off from [Palestinian] governmental institutions”, security, diplomatic or otherwise. Mr Arafat had given the CIA chief, George Tenet, his proposals for unifying the PA's scattered security forces. His plan boiled down to reducing their number from 12 to six, with himself as head of a new Palestinian National Security Council. Nobody was impressed. Mr Tenet reportedly did not think much of it. Nor did Muhammad Dahlan, the young security chief from Gaza who has been vocal in demanding reform of the security forces, and who is said to be the man that America would like to see running them. He stood down from his Gaza post, and is taking a month's “vacation”.

Palestinians in the street are equally unenthused. The men who will be heading the six “new” forces are the same officers whom they accuse of leaving them defenceless during Israel's attacks on West Bank towns. Nor are they much keener on the other rumoured reforms emanating from Mr Arafat's headquarters, such as a miserly “streamlining” of the Palestinian cabinet from 32 ministers to 24, and the promise of new elections early next year. None of this approaches the fundamental changes that, according to opinion polls, are deeply desired by over 90% of West Bank and Gazan Palestinians.

In the past week, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Palestine Liberation Organisation's (PLO) Popular and Democratic Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine—Islamist and radical national groups—have all turned down places in a new Palestinian cabinet. Instead, they urge elections, and unity based on an agreed programme. America expressed its relief that these militant factions were excluding themselves, telling Mr Arafat to “confirm his leadership by making clear to his people that violence and terrorism cannot assist the Palestinians in achieving their national aspirations”. But Mr Arafat's own Fatah movement is unhappy at the “cosmetic” nature of the changes.

Last week, its leading Revolutionary Council came down clearly against all attacks inside Israel. It called for discipline to be exerted over the militias that launch them, and said that the protection of Palestinians is the responsibility of the PA's own forces. But it wants these forces to be answerable to an elected Palestinian parliament, and not involved in political negotiations with Israel. These, it says, should be left to the PLO as representative of the Palestinians inside and outside the occupied territories.

If there was change of this sort, say Fatah leaders, the dissident factions—which include Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah's own radical splinter groups—could be persuaded to confine their armed struggle to the occupied territories themselves. But a reform package that sets out to ensure Israel's security at the expense of the Palestinians', especially while the Israeli army is invading Palestinian cities, will not, say the Fatah men, hold for long.

A sharp example of Mr Arafat's dilemma occurred earlier this week when, on June 3rd, the Palestinian High Court, which under a decree issued last month is newly independent of the executive, ordered the release of Ahmad Saadat, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PA had arrested Mr Saadat in January on the basis of Israeli charges that he had masterminded the PFLP's assassination of an Israeli cabinet minister, Rahavam Zeevi, last year (itself a reprisal for Israel's assassination in August of the former PFLP leader, Abu Ali Mustafa). Mr Saadat was eventually transferred to a PA jail in Jericho, under American and British supervision, as part of a deal on May 1st that saw Mr Arafat freed from his Ramallah office.

Murdered at MegiddoReuters

Since Mr Saadat had never been charged by the Palestinians with any crime, the High Court decreed that he should be freed. Israel's defence minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, immediately announced that should Mr Saadat be released, Israel would not be bound by agreements regarding Mr Arafat's freedom, and would take the “necessary steps”, including ringing Jericho with tanks.

Under pressure, Mr Arafat announced that Mr Saadat would remain under the PA's “protective custody” because of Israeli “threats”. At this, Hamas announced that a Palestinian Authority “under the barrel of Israeli guns” could never bring reform. It urged the Palestinians instead to put their faith in armed resistance. The next day came Armageddon.